Pharmaceutical contaminants: Ecotoxicological aspects and recent advances in oxidation technologies for their removal in aqueous matrices

The presence of pharmaceutical contaminants in aquatic environments has become an issue of huge concern worldwide due to their potential hazardous effects on the aquatic ecosystem, as well as on the health of humans. Bearing that in mind, in the last years we have seen an intense development of novel highly efficient, cost-effective, and sustainable treatment techniques for the degradation of these contaminants. Here, we present a comprehensive literature review on studies conducted over the past five years on pharmaceutical focusing on their ecotoxicological effects, as well as on the research efforts devoted to the development and application of sustainable technologies for the detoxification of a wide range of waters contaminated with these compounds. With these developments, this review look at the future perspectives on the subject and the constraints and challenges faced by researchers in terms of devising highly innovative techniques which can effectively contribute toward enhancing the efficiency of the treatment. According to the review, just a few studies worked in realistic scenarios (23.4%) including real water and contaminant concentrations close to levels detected in the environment. Regarding scale-up considerations, only 6% of studies applied the techniques on a large scale. The importance of economic considerations in the proposed techniques is also discussed in the following directions: (i) use of renewable energy sources; (ii) development of more cost-effective hybrid processes and (iii) simulta-neous removal of other toxic inorganic species, by-products and microorganisms. (AU)